Bagels are ring-shaped rolls with a tough, chewy texture. They are prepared by first boiling and then baking a kneaded and proofed yeast dough.
Bagels have become a universal food; and automated, commercial scale machines for cooking them in large quantities are in widespread use. However, comparable bagel cooking devices suitable for home use are not available. Instead, the cook has to boil the bagels in a pan of water, remove and drain the boiled bagels, transfer the drained bagels to a baking sheet, and then bake the bagels.
Parent application No. 08/372,518 discloses novel devices which are scaled for home and other low volume applications and which greatly simplify the task of boiling and then baking the proofed and shaped bagel dough. Generally speaking, these appliances combine an electrically heated boiler with a convection oven into a single unit. A displaceable rack allows the uncooked bagels to be shifted into the boiler to boil them and to then be transferred into the oven section of the unit to complete the cooking process. A control unit operates the boiling and baking sections of the unit for appropriate user-selectable periods of time and warns the user when each of the two cooking steps is completed.